Adam Williams

As Mexico seeks to implement new strategies to reduce its carbon footprint, the role of natural gas will be of utmost importance, industry leaders said at the Wired Summit held recently in Mexico City.

“Everyone is talking about nearshoring and a key issue to take advantage of this historic opportunity for Mexico is that we’re going to need more electricity, and with it, more natural gas,” Guillermo García Alcocer, former chair of Mexico’s Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE) told NGI’s Mexico GPI. “The current electricity matrix is powered some 60% by natural gas,” he added.

“Bid rounds, including farmouts, can bring new investment, new ideas and new technology while creating diversity in energy resources and supply options. Of course, it is Mexico's full right to develop its energy resources as it chooses,” Chris Sladen, a decorated executive of the international energy industry, told NGI’s Mexico GPI.

“The entire energy industry — including the electricity and oil industry — is capital intensive,” Carlos de Regules Ruíz-Funes, expert in the Mexican energy industry and former Executive Director of the National Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment of Mexico (ASEA), told NGI Mexico’s GPI. 

“One of the most important goals in Mexico is to reach energy security,” Carlos Alberto Boone de Nova, director of business intelligence and public affairs at Énestas México, told NGI’s Mexico GPI. “To achieve that, we must increase our storage capacity — which currently is estimated at only 2.4 days — as well as expand our infrastructure and strengthen the domestic market, considering that currently the country imports around 75% of its natural gas.”

Nearshoring, which allows companies to move some manufacturing operations to other countries while keeping supply chains closer to home, is being billed as the next great economic opportunity for Mexico. 

CFEnergía, the fuel marketing subsidiary of Mexico’s state power company Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), is seeking offers from companies to supply natural gas and develop infrastructure in the Yucatán Peninsula in the southeast region of the country. 

A year/year plunge in natural gas prices buoyed second-quarter earnings for Mexico’s state power company Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), according to management.

Fitch Ratings Inc. downgraded the credit ratings of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) in mid July, citing the Mexico state-owned oil company’s high debts, multiple accidents and “continued weak operating performance.” 

“The most important opportunities for the future are without question tied to the energy transition in Mexico,” Narcis de Carreras, CEO of Valia Energia in Mexico City, told NGI’s Mexico GPI. “Across all of these developments, natural gas will continue to play a central and key role for many more years and will be relied upon to assure the supply of competitive, reliable and sustainable energy.”